Chico’s gardening group raises spirits in Jedburgh during lockdown

Despite social-distancing measures in place during the lock down, Jedburgh’s voluntary community enhancement group is getting stuck in planting floral displays across the royal burgh.

And pensioners living in Millfield Care Home became the first to benefit from those efforts last week, with the creation of a rainbow-themed bed in neighbouring Mary Queen of Scots gardens.

Group volunteer and local running coach Brian ‘Chico’ Woods has used recycled flowers from last year’s beds to brighten up the garden for residents during the lock down.

“We can’t work as a group right now, quite rightly, so we are working individually to tidy up the areas we always set out to take on after the council cuts,” he said. “Mary Queen of Scots gardens were an ideal place to start because it’s so close to the home and residents like to wander through there.

“The old dears come in and sit on their different benches two metres apart and shout across to us and each other.

“The residents enjoy having a walk around the garden and seeing the plants, one said she’s enjoyed watching us from out the window during this lock down.

“The whole idea of the group is that we can have volunteers out putting the blooms in to brighten the town up before residents and businesses adopt them and look after them going forward.”

Scottish Borders Council announced in April 2018 that it would no longer provide communities with bedding plants after that year.

The authority later backtracked in the face of public backlash and promised to provide bedding plants for 2019 after all.

But any brightening of town centres through floral displays this year, will, for the most part, fall on voluntary groups.

Chico added: “We have done all the beds that the council wasn’t going to do this time.

“The gardens that they were going to grass over, we have filled with flowers.

“With the current climate the idea of a rainbow-themed bed seemed right, and we had lots of colourful polyanthus to use.”

Chico, his wife Janette, and other members of the group, working individually, are also responsible for the bulbs currently blooming in the town’s closes and now adopted by residents there, the plants in Allerley Well Park, the daffodil display in the Manse Garden and the plants blossoming all along the ramparts at Abbey Place.

“People have been leaving bulbs for us and offering cash donations for when more need bought,” Chico added, “We are being kept busy, after the idea of the rainbow things expanded from there.

“That particular bed is really obvious when you open the gates to the gardens. It may not last long, but I’m hoping it’ll lift some spirits.”